Maven Setup Problem

[Doug Johnson]

System:  WIN7, JasperSoft Studio 5.6.1(Eclipse Juno), Maven 3.2.3, GITSCC

I am brand new to Maven and am trying to get Maven setup. I got to the point 
where I could get a response with mvn -version.     Now I am trying to set a 
master password.  When I enter mvn  -emp xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I get an error 
that tells me
[FATAL] Non-parseable settings .......m2\settings.xml: TEXT must be immediately 
followed by END_TAG and not START_TAG <position START_TAG seen ..... 
.m2\repository<localRepository>...@8:86.

I looked settings.xml over and didn't see any unclosed tags.   When I opened it 
in MS XML Editor it did complain about it.  I imported it into Eclipse and it 
said <localRepository> needed an end tag - even though it has one in the body:
<?xml version="1.0"
      encoding="UTF-8"?>

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0";
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
                              http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd";>
  <localRepository>c:/Documents and 
Settings/djohns2/.m2/repository<localRepository/>
  <interactiveMode/>
  <usePluginRegistry/>
  <offline/>
  <pluginGroups/>
  <servers>
    <!-- Used for deploying snapshots to maven....<snip> -->
    <!-- Your username and password for maven......<snip> -->
    <server>
      <id>snapshotRepository</id>
      <username>xxxxx</username>
      <password>xxxxxxxx</password>
    </server>
    <!-- Used for deploying releases to maven. ....<snip>
    <!-- Your username and password for maven. ....<snip> -->
    <server>
      <id>repository</id>
      <username>xxxxx</username>
      <password>xxxxxxxx</password>
    </server>
    <!-- Used for deploying sites to java. ....<snip> -->
    <!-- Your username and password for maven. ....<snip> -->
    <server>
      <id>site</id>
      <username></username>
      <privateKey>/home/username/.ssh/id_dsa</privateKey>
      <passphrase></passphrase>
      <filePermissions>664</filePermissions>
      <directoryPermissions>775</directoryPermissions>
    </server>
  </servers>
  <mirrors>
    <mirror>
      <id>central</id>
      <name>XXXXX</name>
      
<url>http://maven.co.pierce.wa.us:8080/nexus/content/groups/public</url<http://maven.co.pierce.wa.us:8080/nexus/content/groups/public%3c/url>>
      <mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf>
    </mirror>
  </mirrors>
  <proxies/>
  <profiles/>
  <activeProfiles/>
</settings>

Eclipse suggested adding </localRepository>right before </settings> so I tried 
that.  It stopped complaining and MS XML Editor successfully showed it now.    
I still get the same error however.  I also tried it just as shown on the Maven 
setup page    - -encrypt-master-password  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.  Still no luck. 
  What could be going wrong here?

Thanks

Doug Johnson